In the sixth Epistle, [[5]] to the Angel of the Church in Philadelphia, Christ saith: Because in the reign of the heathen Emperor Julian, thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which by the woman's flying into the wilderness, and the Dragon's making war with the remnant of her seed, and the killing of all who will not worship the Image of the Beast, shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth, and to distinguish them by sealing the one with the name of God in their foreheads, and marking the other with the mark of the Beast. Him that overcometh, I will make a pillar in the Temple of my God; and he shall go no more out of it. And I will write upon him the name of my God in his forehead. So the Christians of the Church of Philadelphia, as many of them as overcome, are sealed with the seal of God, and placed in the second Temple, and go no more out. The same is to be understood of the Church in Smyrna, which also kept the word of God's patience, and was without fault. These two Churches, with their posterity, are therefore the two Pillars, and the two Candlesticks, and the two Witnesses in the second Temple.
After the reign of the Emperor Julian, and his successor Jovian who reigned but five months, the Empire became again divided between Valentinian and Valens. Then the Church Catholick, in the Epistle to the Angel of the Church of Laodicea, is reprehended as lukewarm, and [[6]] threatned to be spewed out of Christ's mouth. She said, that she was rich and increased with goods, and had need of nothing, being in outward prosperity; and knew not that she was inwardly wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked. She is therefore spewed out of Christ's mouth at the opening of the seventh seal: and this puts an end to the times of the first Temple.
About one half of the Roman Empire turned Christians in the time of Constantine the great and his sons. After Julian had opened the Temples, and restored the worship of the heathens, the Emperors Valentinian and Valens tolerated it all their reign; and therefore the Prophecy of the sixth seal was not fully accomplished before the reign of their successor Gratian. It was the custom of the heathen Priests, in the beginning of the reign of every sovereign Emperor, to offer him the dignity and habit of the Pontifex Maximus. This dignity all Emperors had hitherto accepted: but Gratian rejected it, threw down the idols, interdicted the sacrifices, and took away their revenues with the salaries and authority of the Priests. Theodosius the great followed his example; and heathenism afterwards recovered itself no more, but decreased so fast, that Prudentius, about ten years after the death of Theodosius, called the heathens, vix pauca ingenia & pars hominum rarissima. Whence the affairs of the sixth seal ended with the reign of Valens, or rather with the beginning of the reign of Theodosius, when he, like his predecessor Gratian, rejected the dignity of Pontifex Maximus. For the Romans were very much infested by the invasions of foreign nations in the reign of Valentinian and Valens: Hoc tempore, saith Ammianus, velut per universum orbem Romanum bellicum canentibus buccinis, excitæ gentes sævissimæ limites sibi proximos persultabant: Gallias Rhætiasque simul Alemanni populabantur: Sarmatæ Pannonias & Quadi: Picti, Saxones, & Scoti & Attacotti Britannos ærumnis vexavere continuis: Austoriani, Mauricæque aliæ gentes Africam solito acriùs incursabant: Thracias diripiebant prædatorii globi Gotthorum: Persarum Rex manus Armeniis injectabat. And whilst the Emperors were busy in repelling these enemies, the Hunns and Alans and Goths came over the Danube in two bodies, overcame and slew Valens, and made so great a slaughter of the Roman army, that Ammianus saith: Nec ulla Annalibus præter Cannensem ita ad internecionem res legitur gesta. These wars were not fully stopt on all sides till the beginning of the reign of Theodosius, A.C. 379 & 380: but thenceforward the Empire remained quiet from foreign armies, till his death, A.C. 395. So long the four winds were held: and so long there was silence in heaven. And the seventh seal was opened when this silence began.
Mr. Mede hath explained the Prophecy of the first six trumpets not much amiss: but if he had observed, that the Prophecy of pouring out the vials of wrath is synchronal to that of sounding the trumpets, his explanation would have been yet more complete.
The name of Woes is given to the wars to which the three last trumpets sound, to distinguish them from the wars of the four first. The sacrifices on the first four days of the feast of Tabernacles, at which the first four trumpets sound, and the first four vials of wrath are poured out, are slaughters in four great wars; and these wars are represented by four winds from the four corners of the earth. The first was an east wind, the second a west wind, the third a south wind, and the fourth a north wind, with respect to the city of Rome, the metropolis of the old Roman Empire. These four plagues fell upon the third part of the Earth, Sea, Rivers, Sun, Moon and Stars; that is, upon the Earth, Sea, Rivers, Sun, Moon and Stars of the third part of the whole scene of these Prophecies of Daniel and John.
The plague of the eastern wind [[7]] at the sounding of the first trumpet, was to fall upon the Earth, that is, upon the nations of the Greek Empire. Accordingly, after the death of Theodosius the great, the Goths, Sarmatians, Hunns, Isaurians, and Austorian Moors invaded and miserably wasted Greece, Thrace, Asia minor, Armenia, Syria, Egypt, Lybia, and Illyricum, for ten or twelve years together.
The plague of the western wind at the sounding of the second trumpet, was to fall upon the Sea, or Western Empire, by means of a great mountain burning with fire cast into it, and turning it to blood. Accordingly in the year 407, that Empire began to be invaded by the Visigoths, Vandals, Alans, Sueves, Burgundians, Ostrogoths, Heruli, Quadi, Gepides; and by these wars it was broken into ten kingdoms, and miserably wasted: and Rome itself, the burning mountain, was besieged and taken by the Ostrogoths, in the beginning of these miseries.
The plague of the southern wind at the sounding of the third trumpet, was to cause a great star, burning as it were a lamp, to fall from heaven upon the rivers and fountains of waters, the Western Empire now divided into many kingdoms, and to turn them to wormwood and blood, and make them bitter. Accordingly Genseric, the King of the Vandals and Alans in Spain, A.C. 427, enter'd Africa with an army of eighty thousand men; where he invaded the Moors, and made war upon the Romans, both there and on the sea-coasts of Europe, for fifty years together, almost without intermission, taking Hippo A.C. 431, and Carthage the capital of Africa A.C. 439. In A.C. 455, with a numerous fleet and an army of three hundred thousand Vandals and Moors, he invaded Italy, took and plundered Rome, Naples, Capua, and many other cities; carrying thence their wealth with the flower of the people into Africa: and the next year, A.C. 456, he rent all Africa from the Empire, totally expelling the Romans. Then the Vandals invaded and took the Islands of the Mediterranean, Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, Ebusus, Majorca, Minorca, &c. and Ricimer besieged the Emperer Anthemius in Rome, took the city, and gave his soldiers the plunder, A.C. 472. The Visigoths about the same time drove the Romans out of Spain: and now the Western Emperor, the great star which fell from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, having by all these wars gradually lost almost all his dominions, was invaded, and conquered in one year by Odoacer King of the Heruli, A.C. 476. After this the Moors revolted A.C. 477, and weakned the Vandals by several wars, and took Mauritania from them. These wars continued till the Vandals were conquered by Belisarius, A.C. 534. and by all these wars Africa was almost depopulated, according to Procopius, who reckons that above five millions of men perished in them. When the Vandals first invaded Africa, that country was very populous, consisting of about 700 bishopricks, more than were in all France, Spain and Italy together: but by the wars between the Vandals, Romans and Moors, it was depopulated to that degree, that Procopius tells us, it was next to a miracle for a traveller to see a man.
In pouring out the third vial it is [[8]] said: Thou art righteous, O Lord,—because thou hast judged thus: for they have shed the blood of thy Saints and Prophets, and thou hast given them blood to drink, for they are worthy. How they shed the blood of Saints, may be understood by the following Edict of the Emperor Honorius, procured by four Bishops sent to him by a Council of African Bishops, who met at Carthage 14 June, A.C. 410.
Impp. Honor. &. Theod. AA. Heracliano Com. Afric.